As a door opening/closing control device that is mounted in a vehicle, for example, there are a power back door (also referred to as “power tail gate”) control device, and a power slide door control device. These door opening/closing control devices each uses a motor as an actuator, rotates the motor and activates a door opening/closing mechanism, to open or close the back door or the slide door. Further, there is also a door opening/closing control device provided with a power assisting function, which applies operation assisting force by the actuator so as to allow an operator to perform an operation of opening or closing the door by small force when the operation of opening or closing the door is manually performed (e.g., Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2008-95407, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2011-236697, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2001-193353 and Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2011-26940).
In a door opening/closing control device of Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2008-95407, in order to reduce impact at a sudden stop of a slide door at a fully closed or a fully opened position, a target door speed is switched to a smaller value in the case of a door speed being larger than a predetermined value when the slide door reaches the vicinity of the fully closed position or the fully opened position. Then, driving of a motor is controlled such that an actual door speed gets close to the target door speed.
In a door opening/closing control device of Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2011-236697, in order to realize comfortable operation feeling, an amount of power supply to a motor is regulated based on an electric current flowing in the motor and a change in a moving speed of the slide door, thereby to control an opening/closing speed of the slide door.
In a door opening/closing control device of Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2001-193353, in order to transfer opening/closing of a slide door from a manual to an automatic at whichever position the slide door is, an operating direction (opening/closing direction) of the slide door is judged based on two pulses with shifted phases which are generated from a pulse generating unit in accordance with opening/closing of the sliding door. The motor is then driven in the opening direction or the closing direction in association with that operating direction.
In a door opening/closing control device of Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 2011-26940, an operation amount of a handle for opening/closing a back door is detected and driving of a motor is controlled in accordance with the operation amount, to assist part of operation force required for an operation of opening or closing the back door. Further, in order to reduce the size of the device by use of a low-power motor, the opening/closing operation is assisted by a motor in a range up to a half-opened state of the back door.
For example, when the driving of the actuator is stopped in the case of the operator stopping the manual operation of closing the door in the vicinity of the fully closed position in a power assisting state, the door is left in a slightly opened state. Further, for example, when the actuator is automatically kept driving in the case of the operator stopping the manual operation of closing the door so as to allow the door to stand still at an intermediate position being between the fully closed position and the fully opened position, the door does not stand still at the desired intermediate position. This is inconvenient.